Great Britain blocked the arrest of the bomb plotter a month before the bombings.

www.cnn.com...

(CNN) -- A month before the London bombings, British authorities denied a request by their counterparts in the United States to apprehend a man now believed to have ties to the July 7 bombers, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, of Indian heritage, is currently in custody in Zambia, U.S. and Zambian officials told CNN.

U.S. authorities wanted to capture Aswat, who was then in South Africa, and question him about a 1999 plot to establish a "jihad training camp" in Bly, Oregon.

According to the sources, U.S. officials had Aswat under surveillance in South Africa weeks before the July 7 attacks that killed 52 commuters and the four bombers.

U.S. authorities had asked Britain if they could take Aswat into custody but Britain refused because he was a British citizen, the sources said.

Meanwhile in Britain Thursday -- one week after failed attacks on London's transport network -- a nationwide manhunt focused on three of the suspected terrorists.

looks like the Brits could and i say could have prevented the bombings or maybe get a sniff of such a plot. even if the person is a British citizen, the Brits could have just hold him in Britain instead of extraditing him to the U.S. so they should try him to justice, British system.

Well, hindsight is 20/20.

Aswat, whose associations with al-Qaeda date back ten years, is believed to have entered Briton about two weeks before July 7 on a ferry into Felixstowe, and to have flown out from Heathrow hours before the four suicide bombers killed 52 rush-hour commuters on three Tube trains and a bus.

Investigators have sought him since discovering that he made up to 20 calls from his mobile phone to two of the bombers. Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay in Britain Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London.

Key London bombs suspect arrested in Zambia

interesting indeed.
IMO this is evidence of either;
1. intelligence incompetence
or 2. prior knowledge.

edit. Since when does the US do what they are asked.

[edit on 28-7-2005 by Halfofone]

how about the return of British citizens from Gitmo? after all the Brits did ask for them.